Her Rugged Rancher (14 page)

Bella laughed. “Good reason for me to go fetch him.”

A half hour later, as Bella drove away from the main house, Sassy's questions continued to nag at her. Her sister-in-law had wanted to know if the man who'd caught Bella's eye was married or in the process of getting a divorce. Well, Noah wasn't married. That much was evident. But what did Bella really know about Noah's past? Had he ever been in love or engaged? Maybe he'd tried marriage before and it hadn't worked? That could be the reason he was so against the idea of becoming a husband or father.

Other than what he'd told her that night at the cabin about his childhood, he'd said next to nothing about his past. She understood that he wanted to forget the way his family had treated him. But what about the ten years after he'd left Benson and come here to the J Bar S? A lot could happen to a person in that length of time.

Short of robbery or murder, nothing about Noah's past would change the deep feelings she had for him. But something must have happened during those years. Something so heartbreaking it had made him retreat from any desire for love and family. And until she knew what it was, there was no hope in the two of them ever having a future together.

Chapter Eight

S
ex. That's all he wanted from Bella. That's all he needed.

For the past several days Noah had been repeating the mantra over and over to himself. But try as he might, he couldn't quite convince himself that the only thing he felt for Bella was physical. Maybe that had something to do with the way his heart swelled every time he thought of her tender smile, the sparkle in her eyes when she looked at him. She was a beautiful angel who believed in him. That was enough to make him love her.

Love? Oh, Lord, no! He didn't love Bella. He wasn't ever going to love anyone again. And nothing she could say or do could change his mind about that.

So what are you going to do, Noah? Just continue to use her because she's so willing and intent on having a relationship with you? What kind of man would that make you? A user like your father and grandfather? If you were any kind of man at all, you'll end things with her. You'll set her free to find a loving husband and a good father for the children she wants.

The accusing voice in his head continued to haunt him as he drove away from the ranch yard and headed east toward Bella's house. But the moment he turned onto her drive and spotted her walking toward the barn, the hopeless thoughts flew out of his mind. Sooner or later, he would have to end this insanity. But for right now, he couldn't ignore this ache he had to be near her.

She must have heard the approach of his truck because she turned and glanced toward the road. The moment she spotted him, she waved and started walking in his direction.

Noah parked the truck and quickly strode down the shady path toward the barn. When he got within reach, she didn't say a word. Instead, she wrapped her arms around his waist and held on tight for long, long moments.

“My, my. I feel like a lost teddy bear that's just been found.”

Laughing softly, she tilted her head back and smiled up at him. “I thought you were lost for good. It's been three days since I've seen you.”

Because of his work, Noah was forced to carry a cell phone. And he used it when necessary. Especially when he needed to speak with Jett about a ranching matter. Otherwise, he didn't send text messages or talk on the phone and he'd warned Bella of the fact when she'd given him her phone number a few days ago.

“I guess you're thinking I should've taken the time to call,” he said ruefully.

“It would have been nice,” she agreed, her smile forgiving. “But now that you're here it doesn't matter.”

“These past few days I've had to work late for one reason or another,” he explained. “I thought I was going to get to see you last night, but one of the horses got colic. I ended up staying over on the Horn until two o'clock this morning while Doc Simmons treated him.”

“Oh no! Is he going to be okay?”

He shot her a wry grin. “Yeah. And in case you're interested, so am I.”

Chuckling, she took him by the hand and urged him toward the barn. “I'm glad to hear you're going to survive, too. You can help me feed the horses. And then if you talk to me nicely, I might feed you, too.”

He slanted her a clever look. “I'll try to think up a few sweet words. I'm hungry.”

The sight of her smile warmed him as much as the feel of her small hand wrapped firmly around his. By the time they carried the feed out to the horses' trough and returned to the barn to put away the buckets, Noah couldn't keep his hands off her.

In the cool, dim interior of the feed room, he gathered her into his arms.

“I've been dying to do this.” He kissed her. “And this,” he added, his hands cupping around her breasts.

She dotted rapid-fire kisses on his lips and face, while her hands tugged the tails of his shirt out of his jeans. Her urgent response fed the desire that was already consuming him and he wondered how he could get them both back to the house before he lost all control.

“I've missed you so much, Noah. Make love to me. Now!”

He lifted his head, his gaze desperately searching her face. “Here?”

“Why not?”

The eagerness in her husky voice turned him inside out and before he recognized what was happening, their lips were locked together and he was easing her blouse off her shoulders.

Once the garment fell to the floor, he dropped his head and tasted the creamy skin. “Someone might come down here looking for you.”

Her hands shoved at his shirt until her palms were sliding against his bare torso. Three days without her had seemed like an eternity and now that she was touching him, he was certain her fingers had turned to flames, scorching his skin and making him ache for relief.

“They'd call first. No one but you shows up unannounced,” she said, her low, husky voice full of amusement.

His lips tracked a moist trail up the side of her neck and along her jawbone. “Want me to stop and give you a call first?”

“You devil. You're not stopping—anything,” she finished with a needy groan.

His mouth returned to hers and while they kissed, she guided him backward until they were deep into the room and his legs bumped into a stack of hay bales.

Recognizing her intentions, he allowed her to push him down upon the shelf of hay. With his upper body resting on the makeshift bed and his feet planted firmly on the floor, the pungent scent of alfalfa filled his head. But the smell or the hard stems poking into his back was hardly a detraction from Bella.

Helpless with need, he watched her strip out of her clothing, then waited, his teeth gritted while she opened his fly and freed his throbbing manhood. To have her touching him there was almost too much to bear.

Intent on pulling her beneath him and driving himself into her, Noah jerked upward. But she had other ideas. She shoved him back down and pinned his shoulders against the hay.

“You just lie back and let me do this, cowboy.”

Two weeks ago, her boldness would've shocked him. But not now. The few times they'd been together had been enough for familiarity between them to grow. In the beginning he'd fought hard to prevent the closeness from happening. But he'd failed miserably. Now making love to her was as natural as breathing.

“Bella.”

Her name was the only word he managed to utter before she moved astride him, then quickly enveloped him into her welcoming body.

The pleasure was so intense he felt sure the hair on his head lifted from his scalp. From his waist down he was on fire and the need to douse it had him grabbing her hips and yanking her downward until their bodies were completely locked together.

“If you're trying to torture me you're succeeding,” he said in a choked voice.

“I'm trying to love you,” she whispered, then bent her head downward until she could press her lips to his chest. “That's what I want. What I need.”

There was something very possessive in her voice. It warned Noah that she had no plans of letting him go now, or in the future. But at the moment he wasn't concerned about the grip she had on him. He'd worry about escaping a heartache later, when his mind was clear and she wasn't using her hands and lips and body to intoxicate him.

What started out fast and frantic ended the same way, but much later, after they'd eaten dinner and retired to Bella's bedroom, they made love again. This time with slow, meticulous pleasure. Once it was over, Noah found it difficult to set his world back on its axis.

Lying on his back, he stared into the darkness and wondered how much longer he could allow this thing with him and Bella to go on. He was falling deeper and deeper into a helpless pit of need. If he didn't climb his way out soon, he doubted he'd ever find the strength. And then what? Just lie back and watch himself ruin Bella's life? And his own?

A long stretch of silence passed before Bella rolled toward him and rested a hand on his arm.

“Are you asleep?”

“No. I thought you were,” he answered.

“Mmm. My time with you is too precious to waste sleeping.”

His throat thickened, making his voice gruff. “One of these days you're going to look back and wonder why you wasted all this time on me.”

Sighing, she scooted off the opposite side of the bed and Noah watched her pull on an emerald-green robe and patter barefoot over to a set of French doors. Once she'd opened them wide and the cool night breeze was wafting into the room, she returned to the bed and sat down on the edge of the mattress.

“So you think I won't always want you here with me?” she asked.

Releasing a heavy breath, he shifted onto his side so that he could see her. Now that she'd opened the doors, silvery moonlight was illuminating the room and bathing her profile with a soft glow. Never in his life had he ever dreamed he'd be this close to a woman like her.

“I know you won't,” he answered.

“Why not?”

“Because pretty soon the sex will cool and then I won't have anything to offer you.”

“That kind of talk is insulting to both of us.”

“Sorry, Bella. I'm a realist. Not a romantic.” He gestured to their surroundings. “Look at this room and compare it to my bedroom in the cabin.”

Shaking her head, she traced her fingers alongside his cheek. “That room will always be special to me. Because it was where we first made love.”

No, where we first had sex, he wanted to correct her. But he couldn't. In her mind it was love and he didn't want to hurt her any more than he had to.

“Besides,” she went on, “what does this damned room have anything to do with us?”

He groaned. “Bella, I'm not a pauper. I have money saved and a small herd of cattle to build on. But I could never provide you with a home like this.”

“Why would you want to? We don't need two houses,” she reasoned. “And I don't need money or things from you, Noah. I thought by now you understood that.”

He fixed his gaze on the open doors and watched the leaves on a cottonwood tremble beneath the night breeze. The idea of loving Bella, of making a life with her, made him tremble the same way. Only his quaking was caused by fear, not by a cooling wind.

“A man wants to give to his woman, Bella. Not take.”

“I don't consider myself wealthy, Noah. And I won't until I have a family of my own. That's wealth. Not houses or land or anything money can get you.”

If she stuck with him, she'd remain a poor woman, Noah thought ruefully.

She reached over and placed a hand over his. “I've not pressed you to talk about your past, Noah. But I think—well, I get the feeling you're still living there.”

Everything inside him recoiled. “What makes you think that?”

“Because you're certainly not living for the future.” The tips of her finger traced over his knuckles then down his wrist and onto his forearm. The cuts from the barbed wire were still stitched and covered with Band-Aids but she could have whacked the wounds with a rolling pin and the pain wouldn't come near to matching the empty feeling in his chest.

“I've already told you about my past.”

“You've never told me about the years after you left your grandfather's place, before you came here. Was there a special woman in your life?”

“Why the hell would you want to know that?” he barked the question at her. Then before she could answer, he sat up on the side of the bed and pulled on his shorts.

“Because I care about you. Because I want to know the real reason you've hidden your heart behind a barrier of barbed wire.”

“What if I don't want to tell you?” he asked bluntly.

She snorted. “If? It's already obvious you don't want to tell me anything. But I think I deserve a few answers, don't you?”

A feeling of inevitability came over him and he looked at her. “What do you want to hear? The good stuff? The part about where I finally found a family that I put my faith in and cared about? Or would you rather hear the bad? The part about people I trusted turning their backs on me?”

The bitterness in his voice should have been enough to put her off, but it wasn't. Instead, she scooted closer and rested her hand on his bare knee.

“Why don't you tell me about all of it?” she suggested.

With a heavy sigh, he shook his head. “All right. Maybe you do need to hear this. Maybe then you'll see that I'm way too warped to give you the kind of love you deserve.”

“Look, Noah, you can't get much worse than what Marcus did to me. Besides, nothing you can tell me is going to make me change my mind about you. You're a good man.”

He swiped a hand over his face. “There's a few people down in Arizona who don't think so. And I figure the seven years I've been here hasn't changed their opinion.”

“Why? Who are these people?”

“When I left the ranch near Benson I went to work on another ranch not far from Tombstone. A man named Ward Stevens owned Verde Canyon Ranch and almost from the first moment I met him I felt a kinship with the man. He didn't just own the ranch, but he also worked right along with the hands. He had more knowledge of horses and cattle in one finger than most of us will ever acquire in a lifetime.”

“So you liked working for him?”

“It was like living a dream, Bella. The ranch covered an enormous area and though much of it was stark and wild, there were parts when the rains came that would turn beautiful and green. Ward liked my work and dedication and after a few years, he gave me the opportunity to buy into the ranch. My part was small, but it was a partnership nonetheless.”

“That must have been very special for you.”

“A moment ago when you talked about money not buying the important things, well, that's how I felt about Ward. He treated me like a son and I would've done anything for the man.”

She squared around so that she was facing him. “So what happened? If everything was so good, why did you leave?”

“I had no choice,” he said flatly. “Ward believed I was sleeping with his wife.”